


paint you a clear blue sky

by bonafake



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Kent Parson's Ever Changing Eye Color, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 19:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8340136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonafake/pseuds/bonafake
Summary: Tater motions towards his face. “What color are eyes being?” he asks, and Kent kind of wants to laugh.Because of course this guy—who’s fucking got the tall dark and handsome nailed—has an adorable Russian accent. “Green, kind of? Maybe blue. Or brown. I’m not really sure,” he babbles.“No,” Tater says, and he picks Kent up and places him on a barstool. “I think they are being grey.”or,five times someone asks kent about color and one time they don't.





	

**Author's Note:**

> clearly, there are not enough five-plus-one things in this fandom, or any other fandom, so i wrote one. i just??? really like this ship?
> 
> check please belongs to ngozi! it is amazing and wonderful! go read it!
> 
> notes: kent parson/alexei mashkov, past kent parson/jack zimmermann, angst, symbolism, implied/referenced anxiety medicine abuse, jack zimmermann's overdose, alcohol consumption, a skewed sense of self-worth, toast, caring deeply.

“What color are your eyes?” asks Kent’s coach. He's sixteen years old, and it’s his first practice in the Q. 

“I—grey, I think.”

The coach laughs, and leaves to go speak with someone else—and he's pretty sure that someone else is Jack fucking Zimmermann. It’s weird—he’s going to be on the same team as an NHL superstar’s son—and frankly, the only way Kent sees this is a giant fucking shadow over the rest of his time in the Q. 

How could anyone ever even look at Kent when he's on the same line as Jack Zimmermann?

—

“What even is the color of this carpet, eh?”

They’re standing in the first hotel room they’ve ever shared together—on the first roadie of their first season, nonetheless and Kent’s startled. If Jack has run out of small talk around him, he’s not sure what’s going to happen—most of their interactions involve ice, alcohol, and other people—not usually all at once, of course. Hell, he’s not even sure if they’re friends. “Oh. Um, brown, I guess?”

Jack squints at it—Kent sees a look of thorough concentration in his eyes—and that's another thing Kent likes about Jack—he gives everything 120%—and he says, “Actually, I think it’s green.”

“Yeah?” Kent asks, and he takes a step closer—and if he pretends he doesn't notice Jack’s Adam’s apple bobbing up and down on his throat, well, that’s nothing. 

“Yeah. Green.”

“Maybe you need a closer look.”

Jack drops to his knees. He’s kind of breathless, and Kent can see the glimmer of a blush at the base of his throat. “Maybe I do.”

Kent kneels down and kisses him. Jack kisses back, and the feeling in his chest is tight and perfect. 

He undoes the zipper and really—well, it’s not that things go poorly—no, Jack Zimmermann is a fucking perfectionist and there’s really no way he didn't research blowjobs. The act itself, Kent thinks, is really more symbolic than it is functional—but he can't say he didn't like it. 

Jack leaves before they can talk about it.

—

“Color?”

“Green,” Kent says. 

“Good. Keep going. I can take more.”

Jack’s breathing hard, but Kent does—five more hard smacks on his fucking perfect hockey ass and then he kisses him. It’s rough, angry—the kind of thing that he’s sort of started to expect from Jack—because they’re both scared, and they’re both there—and maybe it’s getting to be something of a problem, but Kent actually likes Jack. Yeah. Yeah. 

When they’re done—and it’s perfect, as usual—their chemistry is as impeccable off the ice as it is on—Jack rolls over to face the wall and Kent rolls over to face the other wall and they pretend they don't have anything to talk about, least of all the red marks on Jack's ass and the mess they’ve made on the hotel sheets. 

In the morning, everything will be the same.

—

“Kent? The—the doctors need to know what color the pills Jack’s been taking in the last week,” Alicia says, rousing Kent from his introspective silence. Her voice is shaking, the same on the outside as Kent is on the inside.

“What? Oh. I—they were the little white ones. That he—he has the prescription for.”

Alicia nods, and she goes back, and Kent sits there silently, while his mind is screaming and choking him and saying your fault your fault your fault over and over and again and he can't take it so he leaves. 

Jack doesn't call.

—

Tater motions towards his face. “What color are eyes being?” he asks, and Kent kind of wants to laugh. 

Because of course this guy—who’s fucking got the tall dark and handsome nailed—has an adorable Russian accent. “Green, kind of? Maybe blue. Or brown. I’m not really sure,” he babbles. 

“No,” Tater says, and he picks Kent up and places him on a barstool. “I think they are being grey.”

“Really?” Kent asks. “Because maybe you just need a closer look.”

He’s flirting, and it’s obvious, and for a few seconds, Kent is back in the Q and he’s on the young side of sixteen and he’s five seconds away from getting the first blowjob of his life and—no. This is Alexei. It’s Tater. For God’s sake, is the only thing that anyone needs to do around him is bring up color and he’ll become putty in their hands? Actually, he’s pretty sure that’s just Alexei. 

“Maybe is true,” Tater says, and he leans forward and catches Kent’s lips in a kiss. 

And Kent—he’s startled—because the last time someone kissed him like they cared was when he was seventeen and Jack had finally admitted that this wasn't just a hookup and—no. Tater—this kiss—this—it deserves his full attention. Kent leans into it, feels the scrape of his stubble along his cheek, and yeah, Tater is good fucking kisser. 

Alexei stands back to examine Kent. “They is being grey. I saw up close.”

And Kent—he laughs—and it’s the first time in months anyone has actually made him laugh out loud and it’s Tater and it’s good. 

Tater lifts him up onto the bar and kisses him and when Kent makes a grab for his zipper, Alexei moves his hands away and says. “We wait. You will fall here.”

They do, and it’s so worth it. 

—

“What are you wanting on your toast?” Tater asks from the kitchen. 

“Jam. And peanut butter. Thanks, Tater.”

“Is no problem. Concussed people should not be making own toast.”

Kent grins, and rubs Kitt under the table. “I love you.”

“What?” 

“I love you,” says Kent. “Wasn't I obvious enough?”

“Took you a while,” Tater grumbles, but Kent knows that it's all okay, that he can be forgiven for an emotional void and a heart locked up in barbed wire, because Tater knows, knows that Kent has been in therapy for the last five and a half years and they’ve barely even made a fucking dent in Kent’s obvious and latent daddy issues, let alone his and Jack’s problems, knows that the first time he and Tater ended up fucking he cried, and it was good and bittersweet and bittersour, and Tater knows that there’s a hole Kent is not entirely sure he can ever fill, and Tater knows all of this and loves him anyways.


End file.
